


Tell No Lies

by LMX



Series: Kitten Steps [2]
Category: Leverage
Genre: Alternate Universe - Werewolf, Episode Remix, Episode: s03e15 The Big Bang Job, Gen, Were-Creatures
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-11-20
Updated: 2012-11-20
Packaged: 2017-11-19 03:58:49
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,632
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/568829
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LMX/pseuds/LMX
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Moreau's been after Eliot for a very long time. To find out that Nathan Ford - a no-body - has successfully tamed his long-lost prize... this infuriates him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Tell No Lies

**Author's Note:**

> I've been informed that lycanthrope is for wolves specifically, so therianthrope is the term I've defaulted to. Hope that doesn't confuse too many people.  
> Betaed by rbmi_fan.livejournal.com

Tell your friend a lie. If he keeps it secret, then tell him the truth. ~ Proverb

Hardison knew that Eliot was scared of Moreau - gun, drug, wereanimal and people trafficker, bogey man to every criminal therianthrope that had ever worked freelance, and all round bad man. It wasn't like it was unexpected, they were all pretty terrified these days. He also knew that he would have been able to tell that Eliot was scared even if he couldn't have smelled the fear pouring off his skin. As it was Hardison could nearly touch the scent, not even close to masked by the other overwhelming smells around them right now.

For Eliot, that level of fear was pretty unusual. He was damned impressive at keeping his emotions under wraps most of the time, and anger really was the only one he took for a spin regularly. But now the mention of the man, even the allusion to him, had Eliot sweating bullets.

Hardison had his own things to think about so he hadn't really pushed at the odd behaviour. Moreau wasn't a name that had crossed Hardison's screen before they'd met the Italian and she'd delivered her ultimatum, and it seemed strange to think that it had taken less than a year for the shadowy figure to become such an important part of his consciousness. All Eliot had given them was that 'he hires weres - the worst of the worst - the ones who kill because their animal enjoys it', and that had been pretty well backed up by what he'd found online. Thinking back, maybe that was what had led them astray. They all knew Eliot had never enjoyed killing, not in human form or in animal form. It was an intrinsic part of who Eliot was, and so they hadn't looked any further into how Eliot knew what he knew about Moreau. That sloppiness was something that he was regretting now, standing beside a pool surrounded by six weres with guns and three more with fur and teeth.

The pool-side was near silent now that the girls had stopped screaming and fled what was obviously soon to become the scene of violence. The circle of cocked guns and growling shifters had closed around the two of them as Eliot came up against another man who had stepped forwards out of the circle, moving to stand closer to Eliot than would have been considered polite amongst non-shifters. From the looks on their faces the invasion of space still wasn't supposed to be polite. They weren't going to be scenting each other.

The guy was of a height with Eliot, nose-to-nose with him, his gun down and to one side. Even in the waves of aggression coming off the enclosing circle of terror, Hardison could tell from his scent that the guy was a shifter - something feline from the way he tilted his head and bared his teeth at Eliot. The look of utter disgust on his face was ugly.

"Chapman," Eliot said - and fuck, he knew these shifters by name, "I see he's letting you wear clothes these days." And the hitter was fucking antagonising the guys with guns, completely unarmed. The head guy's hand twitched on the gun at his side, and for a moment Hardison thought he was about to see a friend die; the look of disgust had turned to one of fury, sallow striped markings showing briefly on the other man's neck before disappearing back into white skin.

There was no way either of them could change fast enough to defend themselves here, and even Eliot couldn't stand against this many guns at point-blank range and weres on top of those. All Hardison had was his hastily put together middle-man character, and Eliot's firm warning - a strangled hiss of stage-whisper, his eyes wild and fear-scent overwhelming - from the elevator: "Just stick close to me and don't change. Whatever happens, don't change."

Of course, that was a harder order to follow when he didn't know if he could trust Eliot anymore; now that he knew he used to work for Moreau. And also, when he was drowning in a pool.

The sad thing was, there hadn't been many people he had trusted in his life, and he *did* trust Eliot, even after this little stunt. So he didn't change, even when the wolf form would have slipped out of the cuff like it was nothing.

A key dropped sluggishly through the water beside him when he thought he might have to do it anyway, or die trying to follow Eliot's orders. When he struggled out of the pool, Eliot was a leopard and he had to fight not to break character as Moreau closed the deal with Eliot as if it was a perfectly normal situation.

Eliot shoved at the back of his knees to get him moving, and he stopped only long enough to gather up Eliot's discarded clothes. They walked out together just like that. A man with a leopard at his feet.

Hardison suddenly felt glaringly on show, as they headed towards the predetermined meeting place. Hardison had walked through the streets with Parker before, but he was still dripping wet and a leopard drew more attention than a wolf. The exotic weres weren't exactly known to flaunt themselves the way the wolves and domestics were known to. Too many hunters didn't care what species their pelts came from - or worse, got more for the ones that tested human on the black market. Not to mention, Leverage Inc. weren't exactly a group trying to bring attention to themselves right now.

Hardison expected Eliot to find somewhere - some dark alleyway or restaurant back room - to change back; he was still carrying the hitter's clothes under one arm, but they just walked all the way to where Nate and the others were waiting.

Hardison needed Eliot human for this. Needed to have this out with him, a proper screaming match on both sides. He needed to know WHY, and a non-verbal leopard wasn't going to be able to offer him any answers.

But Eliot didn't change back. Not when Hardison outed his dirty secret to the others, not when Sophie asked and Nate demanded, not when Parker knelt in front of him and asked him why. He sat and stared into the distance, his tense shoulders the only thing to suggest it wasn't just boredom that drew his gaze there.

Eliot didn't change back when the recriminations finally ran dry, or on the way home, or when they got there, or when they sat planning or during dinner, or that night or the next. He made no attempt to communicate with them, and when they asked or pressed or begged, he turned his back on them.

Hardison wasn't sure if they was some kind of self-inflicted punishment or if something was actually wrong, but he hadn't seen Eliot stay in cat form for this length of time before, ever.

Nate's phone rang just as Hardison pulled up the online news pages detailing the neat assassination of the General and his family in their home. Eliot didn't glance away from the screen as Nate took the call, and Hardison found himself wondering if he was understanding anything that was going on around him, or if he had descended into animal-mind. If they had more time, they'd be taking him to a medical professional, trying to work this thing out, but they...

"What have you done to him?" Nate's quiet but demanding tone cut into Hardison's thoughts, demanding all of his attention, only to see Nate slam the phone down on the nearest flat surface. A growl rippled out of him, far more lion than he usually showed.

"Moreau is going to text us the auction details. He's requested that Eliot and I be in attendance, no middle-man." Nate looked down at the phone rather than up at them, Parker and Sophie wandering into the room at the sound of Nate's forceful hang-up. He breathed quietly for a moment more, controlling himself. "The three of you need to find the Ram's Horn and get it to the auction. If we can get Moreau and the bomb in the same place we can bring the full weight of the US government down on him."

"Nate..." Sophie was stood in the doorway, as if hesitant to come any closer, "What did he say about Eliot?"

"He didn't say anything," Nate snarled, "But he's behind this." He gestured at Eliot's leopard form, his back still turned on the others. "I know it." He sank to his knees, firm hands bringing Eliot's chin around until he could look straight into feline eyes. Eliot stood and let Nate look; let him take in the sight of him. "Moreau collects dangerous therianthropes," Nate observed. "We knew that already. If he has a way to keep them in their animal form... or out of it... It would be a good way to control them once he has them."

Hardison couldn't help but hiss at the thought. He loved his other form, loved it like he loved hacking and the thought of lying down with Parker in a dog pile, with or without the others. The thought of being constrained to it, though, for any length of time... Their whole being was involved in the fluidity of the change. Never wholly one thing or the other unless by choice.

Nate stood and turned his back on Eliot and the others for a moment. "We'll just have to make sure it doesn't mean he can get his hands on Eliot. Again."

"Nate, you know Eliot wasn't infected until four years ago. It was less than a year before we met..." Sophie stopped, trying to force out the facts against what she knew to be true. "If Eliot has been working for Moreau..."

"We have to assume he was hired before," Nate interrupted. "Before he was turned. We have to assume that, Sophie. There's no alternative we can all live with."

"What are we going to..." Hardison started.

"We stick to the plan," Nate insisted, interrupting.

"You'll have to go to that auction," Sophie said softly, looking between them. "Both of you."

"Just make sure you have the evidence for us." Nate stood, grabbed his coat from the back of the chair, a briefcase with a change of clothes for Eliot, just in case, and their backstory for the Feds. If they could get them there... "We're going to need that bomb, Sophie."

"Nate..." Sophie started to object.

"Everything's going to be alright," Nate soothed.

As if to back him up, Eliot stood and curled a brief circle around Sophie's legs before moving towards the door. Nate followed him.

-

The warehouse was cold and empty. This was not the place for an auction, even one as illicit and underground as this. The Italian was hard to wake at first, sprawled unconscious across an office chair, and Nate could see Eliot's hackles raised - the line of fur at his neck standing stiffly to attention as he stood guard over Nate's turned back while he tried to rouse her.

They were barely moving again - towards the exits this time; this was obviously not what they had hoped for - when her phone rang. Nate took it from her, already knowing who would be on the other end.

"Did you know he used to be my lieutenant?" Moreau asked on the other end. "I hired him because I thought he was like the other ones I had hired - something dangerous inside, under the skin. Imagine my surprise, when my drugs had no affect." The chuckle on the other end of the phone was self-deprecating, but amused. Moreau liked to be pleasantly surprised. Nate didn't interrupt, he was hoping for more information. Hoping to buy them time in the same way that Moreau was hoping to slow their escape. Ah, the villainous monologue. "But he was mine, you understand? I was furious when I learned he had been turned and had not immediately returned to me. I was his safest option - a place where he could be as wild and unrestrained as he needed to be, where he could stretch his claws without fear of repercussion, like all those I watch over. So who are you, tell me, that you can keep him at your side like some kind of pet, declawed?" Moreau's voice was nearly vibrating fury. "Do you really think you've changed Eliot? He won't play by your rules forever, you know. It's not in his nature."

There was movement in the background, men taking positions around the warehouse. Eliot was tensing - slinking close to the ground as he edged to the corner to glance around stacked crates. The expression as he glanced back at the two of them, feline terror familiar enough that Nate could recognise it in another cat...

"Perhaps it doesn't matter anymore," Moreau continued in his ear.

"We're leaving, Moreau," Nate growled. "I'm taking Eliot and we're leaving here."

"Sorry. I hate to waste talent like Spencer's, even more so now that he is such a spectacular example of therian-kind. But you're done now. Whatever your plans were, they end here. Say goodbye to your pet."

Moreau hung up and Nate surged for the exit with the Italian's hand in his. Eliot turned sharply in front of them and growled a firm 'stop', the message clear in his body language. There was no easy communication in this form, but Eliot's ears twitched back to the stand-taking that's going on behind them. Mostly human, by the sound of it - guns being cocked, booted feet on bare ground - but still enough to kill the three of them many times over. Nate looked on long enough to realise what Eliot was planning, with his nose close to the ground as if asking for forgiveness.

"Eliot..." he started, not even sure what he was planning on saying, but needing to say something. To acknowledge what Eliot was offering. What he was going to walk into. Nate's throat was thick, his breathing uneven. He couldn't let this happen. He couldn't let this... could he?

Eliot just turned his back and started towards the sound of death being prepared for them. Nate didn't say anything else, just waited for the shooting to start and pulled the Italian along with him as he bolted for the warehouse door.

When Eliot appeared later, human and naked save for the blood that coated his face and torso, the wild thing in his eyes raw and just as naked as his body, he stayed only long enough to ask Nate, with his voice thick and hoarse, not to tell the team what he'd done.

Nate only swallowed down the horror, the instinctual fear and repulsion at the image Eliot presented and tried to keep his face blank as he nodded his consent.

It was a promise. Not to tell them how Eliot had killed with claws and teeth and animal-mind. Not to tell them how he'd been every inch Moreau's lieutenant that afternoon. Not to tell them that Nate had let him do it.

Because it hadn't been Moreau who had asked Eliot to revert to this. Eliot had done it for him. In that warehouse Nate had made himself as much a monster as Moreau had ever been.

Eliot disappeared before the ambulance arrived, before Sophie and Hardison and Parker rolled up, before they could see him covered in the evidence of the day's violence. He disappeared and didn't return until he had an answer for them, an old ally on the other end of the phone.

Nate just had to hope that finishing the job against Moreau would be enough to free him of his actions that day.


End file.
